Williams fell backward with his right leg trapped underneath his torso, dropped onto his back and remained on the ice as play continued briefly in the Kings’ end. He was taken off by stretcher after a lengthy delay at 4:27 of the first period.

“It’s not good,” Kings coach Terry Murray said. “We’ll take him back on the flight with us tonight, have the team doctors look at him and get the word out.”

Williams has eight goals and 16 assists in 33 games.

Dustin Brown scored and Michal Handzus scored for the Kings, who were playing for the first time in eight days. They have lost three of their past four.

Ryan Smyth returned to the lineup for the Kings after missing six weeks with an upper-body injury and was reunited with linemates Brown and Williams, but the lineup held for only two shifts.

Brown responded after Williams’ injury by giving the Kings a 1-0 lead 87 seconds later when he skated untouched between the circles and backhanded a long rebound at the top of the crease past Ilya Bryzgalov’s left skate.

“With Justin going down we rallied around that,” Brown said. “We knew it was pretty bad and we responded pretty well.”

Keith Yandle scored the winner with 9:20 to go.

The Coyotes matched the franchise record of nine consecutive home victories set from Dec. 27, 1992, to Jan. 23, 1993, when the team was in Winnipeg.

Aucoin tied it at 8:45 on a one-timer off Robert Lang’s pass from behind the net.

Hanzal snapped a 1-1 tie at 13:56 of the first period when he won a faceoff to the left of Jonathan Quick and chipped the puck off a pack of players on the front left edge of the crease.

The puck deflected into the air and just past the outstretched left glove of defenseman Rob Scuderi into the right side of the net for an unassisted goal.

“I would have been disappointed if that faceoff goal had been the winning goal,” Murray said. “At least we tied it up.”

Handzus scored a power-play goal at 3:58 of the third period, backhanding a rebound off Kopitar’s shot to tie it.

Yandle came on as the trailer on a rush by Taylor Pyatt and Peter Mueller and took a pass from Pyatt between the circles. Jonathan Quick stopped Yandle’s initial shot, but the defenseman wristed the rebound home from the top left of the crease.

Kings activate two, but place Stoll on IR

The Kings activated right wings Wayne Simmonds and Brandon Segal from injured reserve, but placed center Jarret Stoll on injured reserve because of a groin injury.

Simmonds has 20 points in 33 games, but hasn’t played since Dec. 10. He had arthroscopic surgery on his left knee earlier this month, but missed just four games thanks to an eight-day break in the Kings’ schedule.

Stoll was hurt in a loss to Vancouver on Dec. 14, keeping him out of the past two games.

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